Writing Portfolio

ESSAY: Inside and Outside: An Essay on Leslie Friedman's "Go Home"

What
does it mean to feel at home? For home to be a place that doesn’t seem to
particularly want you? For home to be transitory and impermanent? To be an
outsider? I ponder these questions as I meet Leslie Friedman for the first time
at Ray’s in Philadelphia’s Chinatown. I’m scanning the menu when she comes in,
smiling and apologizing for being fifteen minutes late. Philadelphia traffic
and parking, she says by way of apology. I’m slightly nervous and excited as
she takes her seat across from me, the both of us packed into a tiny table by
the coffee machine. After all, I am writing an essay for an artist whose work I
admire, it’s our first-ever meeting in person, and I have not had the chance to
talk with Leslie one on one in this way.

After
chatting about such varied subjects as my education-slash-future plans, the
Philadelphia art scene, and the deliciousness of the pastries on Ray’s
countertops, I whip out my cell phone and begin asking my questions. Friedman
is direct and forthcoming when she speaks, animating her discourse with
gestures and excitement in her voice. Her openness and self-assuredness and her
enthusiasm for her practice make me glad I made the trek out to the city on
this cold, bright day.

When
describing her show, Go Home, Friedman grows particularly thoughtful.
Her words and intentions for this exhibition are informed not only by her
artistic background but also by her studies in politics as an undergraduate.
The idea for Go Home came about when Friedman heard of a close friend’s
21-year struggle to obtain citizenship in the United Kingdom. Thus, the
multitude of papers on display at NAPOLEON (with the friend’s name carefully
redacted for privacy) provides keen thematic insight about universal feelings
of displacement and otherness. As Leslie goes into more detail about Go Home,
I’m drawn in more and more, and I know immediately that answering Friedman’s
email inviting me to write this essay was the right choice.

Friedman
cites Jenny Holzer’s series of “Redaction Paintings” as a reference for this
part of Go Home, if not specifically an inspiration for the show. In
this particular project, begun in 2004, Holzer created paintings of heavily
redacted government documents concerning the war on terror, and the United
States’ subsequent involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. Holzer obtained the
original documents through the Freedom of Information Act. While the idea of
FOIA is to create a sense of accountability, honesty, and transparency from the
government to the people of the United States, the degree to which the
documents were redacted contradicts this ideal of government transparency.

In
the texts on which Holzer’s work is based, the redacted names remove any trace
of identity or humanity from the people described, be they politicians who
helped plan war strategies or Guantánamo Bay detainees. Yet Friedman’s choice
to redact the name of the friend whose documents, and thus whose life, is on
display in her NAPOLEON show creates an entirely different statement. Via
redaction, Friedman has succeeded in connecting this particular individual’s
experience to all of the people trying to find a safe, stable home in a new
country today, be they refugees from Syria or workers from Mexico. When I see
the multitude of documents on display, with their dizzying, endless lines of
text, I can’t help but imagine what I would do in the place of the unnamed
subject to whom these papers belong. What does it mean to not have a home? For
your idea of home to be transitory and impermanent? To have to provide hard
evidence of your longing for a home on a repeated, regular basis, when so many
others can take having a home—this home—for granted?

That
explains the documents on display in Go Home, I think to myself. But
what about the bras?

Ah
yes, the bras. The bronzed bras strung along a line. How do they fit into a
narrative about home and displacement and acceptance? Friedman’s answer is
simple: the bras reference her friend’s bras hanging above the bathtub in her
boyfriend’s house, where her friend is currently staying. Bras drying on a
line—instead of tucked away into a drawer, neatly folded—as if she has not yet
made herself at home in this country she so wants to be a part of. And this, to
my mind, is such a perfect representation; bras are so personal, worn next to
the skin and hidden beneath layers of clothing, and seeing them in this
transitory, unsure context is genuinely poignant and revealing.

Leslie Friedman, Hand Wash Hang Dry,

Mixed media: felt, faux leather, foil stamp, 20” x 30”, 2015-16.

While
Friedman’s practice is not specifically predicated on issues of otherness, she
is interested in what it means to be an outsider in a multitude of ways. Her
2011 MFA show, Glitzianers, dealt with the ever-topical idea of cultural
appropriation in a Jewish context. What would it be like if mainstream culture
and fashion were to decide that the physical trappings of Jewish tradition and
ritual were suddenly considered cute and cutting-edge? What if, much like how
the bindi and the Native American feather headdress have been appropriated by
white teenagers and young adults at music festivals, these same teenagers were
to don tefilin at Coachella, grow out peyes for Burning Man, and
wrap themselves in tallitot for casual, hip, everyday wear? What does it
mean for the symbols of someone’s outsider status to be accepted as trendy and
desirable while the people to whom this culture truly belongs are still on the
margins of society? Visitors to the exhibition were encouraged to take home
Lily Pulitzer-esque patterned yarmulkes and think about the practice of
cultural appropriation—to consider how jarring and inappropriate taking sacred
symbols out of context can be when viewed through the right lens.

Similarly,
in a 2014 show at NAPOLEON, titled Gay, Jewish, or Both, Friedman
collaborated with designer Bernardo Margulis to explore the idea of occupying
two marginalized identities in the context of a dinner party. When parts of
one’s identity come into conflict, must one choose a side? What does it mean
for these sides to play off one another in a cultural and physical way? What do
gayness and being Jewish have in common when viewed from an outside point of
view? And how does being an outsider in this context differ from being an
outsider in other ways?

Despite
the Jewish themes present in much of her work, Friedman is adamant that she
does not want to be pigeonholed as a specifically Jewish artist. Her vision is
broader, and thus her ideas and work are more universal in the way they engage
with themes of otherness and outsiders. As Friedman delves further into her
practice, her art’s engagement with social issues becomes not only more
affecting, but also more relevant for our times, even as it is rooted in the
knowledge her own Jewish identity has given her. As Friedman herself says,
“like Glitzianers or Gay, Jewish, or Both, Go Home is
about a group of people who have been marginalized, but the approach is
different. I am not drawing directly from my story—I am taking inspiration from
other people’s stories.”

At
the time of writing this essay, Friedman is still completing additional works
for Go Home. I am certain that by the time NAPOLEON opens its doors,
each new piece will be as affecting and thoughtful as the documents on the wall
and the bras on a line. I am sure that just as visitors to Glitzianers
walked away with prettily-patterned yarmulkes, the people who see Go
Home will come away with something more intangible, but just as real. In
the artist’s own words: “Despite the fact I am inspired by the story of
individuals, I hope people take away a universal feeling. We have all had that
temporary feeling of not being able to fully settle in, knowing that we are
leaving soon. I want viewers to imagine what it would be like to have that
feeling for years and years.”

After
my transitory time with Friedman, I walk away with a renewed appreciation for
the kind of art that Friedman has devoted herself to—the kind of art that asks
tough questions about societal issues and ultimately helps us, the audience,
understand something new about the people in our world—the people we know well
and those whom we cannot possibly know.